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Student Mindfulness Course

The University Chaplains are taking bookings now from UG and PG students for the forthcoming 8-week Mindfulness Course. Numbers are strictly limited. The course is free, apart from the cost of the course book. The course will run from Wednesday 3rd February – 23rd March, 3-4pm on the Whiteknights campus (including enhancement week).

Participants will be expected to buy a course book, attend the full course, and to practise the meditations on a daily basis.

More info: What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is a very simple form of meditation. Mindfulness helps you to the understanding that thoughts and feelings (including negative ones) are transient. They come and they go, and ultimately, you have a choice about whether to act on them or not. A typical meditation consists of focusing your full attention on your breath as it flows in and out of your body. Focusing on each breath in this way allows you to observe your thoughts as they arise in your mind and, little by little, to let go of struggling with them. Mindfulness does not require any religious commitment.

What does the course involve? This is a guided course following the best-selling book and CD “Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World” by Oxford University psychologist Mark Williams and Danny Penman. Participants will need to buy the book themselves (typically around £8 on Amazon). Each weekly session will introduce the material to be practised independently in the following week. In order to benefit most, participants will need to commit to the full 8 weeks, and on a daily basis will be encouraged to practise the meditation techniques on their own that they have learnt together.

What have Reading students said about the course? “I feel like I am able to deal with stress in a much better way [and] appreciate the things that I used to take for granted” “I will use mindfulness for the rest of my life” “Kept me standing through some difficulties” “It was a space where I felt safe and supported”